Look more closely at the upper edge, though, and two deep notches cut deliberately into the stone become visible, a detail that raises more questions than the slab itself answers. It is not where it started out.

The slab was originally located in the old graveyard at Burgage before being moved to its current position. Researcher Paddy Healy documented it in 2009, recording its dimensions precisely: 1.11 metres tall, 0.34 metres wide, and 0.09 metres thick. Those notches near the top are the feature that makes the stone genuinely puzzling. Cut deep into the edge of the slate, they are clearly intentional, but their original function is not recorded. Notched slabs of this kind have occasionally been associated with the display or securing of grave markers, crosses, or wooden structures, though what purpose the cuts served here remains unresolved. The stone is thin enough to have been worked without great difficulty, yet the notches suggest a practical design, not pure decoration. Whether the slab was fashioned specifically as a grave marker or repurposed from an earlier use is similarly unclear.